SUGAR^®

SUGAR^® Certification & Licensing Training
November 2020

Bitten Jonsson, RN, holds the license to certify students in the SUGAR tool. SUGAR^® stands for Sugar Use General Assessment Recording. She is offering a training course for the first tool, specifically dedicated to assessing addiction/ pathological use of sugar, flour and processed food.

This simple tool transforms people’s lives.

She has been developing the training for the SUGAR^® since 2013. The first International class was held in the fall of 2018. Today, we have many certified/licensed professionals all over the globe.

What is SUGAR^®?

• It is a comprehensive structured interview assessment and evaluation tool that examines the client’s relationship with sugar, flour, processed food and related consequences.
• Prior to the development of SUGAR^® there was no comprehensive evaluation instrument available for “food addiction”, although a number of screening tools do exist such as UNCOPE/S, Yale scale, different self-assessment questionnaires, etc.
• SUGAR^® is based on the diagnostic criteria for harmful use, pathological use and addiction to mind-altering (psychoactive) drugs as described in the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases) from WHO, and DSM5 from APA and is currently being upgraded to ICD 11.
• SUGAR^® is a tool that distinguishes between Pathological(addictive) use and ”harmful use”, such as stress eating, emotional eating, binging and other lifestyle eating; versus the very intractable, chronic and serious disease of sugar/flour/processed food addiction. This distinction is as vital to provide adequate treatment for sugar/food addiction, as the treatment is very different for the addicted than it is for the harmful user.
• Imbedded in the tool is screening for AID’s, Addiction Interaction Disorders. This important screening addresses the need to understand Addiction as one illness with many outlets, mainly alcohol, subscription pills and drugs.
• The instrument assesses if the client has harmful use or pathological use (addiction). The assessment includes an addiction development curve which shows the clients relationship with sugar/flour /food from the beginning of the harmful use, to the present. This is the best motivational tool available for addicted people today. It has proved to be very successful in increasing the client’s motivation and compliance to their recovery treatment protocol.

Who is SUGAR® training for?

SUGAR^® is for professionals who work with people who may have developed a problematic or even a chemical dependence/addiction to sugar/flour/processed food.

The purpose of the training is to learn how to use the SUGAR^® instrument which is based on internationally approved criteria for dependence according to diagnostic criteria of the ICD 10 and DSM5 for harmful use and addiction.

After the training, you will be able to:

• Analyze and compile the information collected from the SUGAR^® assessment based on the diagnostic criteria and knowledge about addiction medicine in an organized and easily understood way.
• Present your assessment to any client, or the referral organization you are using in a therapeutic, non-confrontational environment that provides a safe space for your client to begin their recovery.
• Assist the client in gaining deep insight and knowledge into their problem to tackle denial, as well as gain insight into how to receive help and direct the client to the appropriate treatment.
• Only practitioners/professionals certified and licensed in SUGAR^® are authorized to use this assessment tool. Authorization for this tool requires completion of the SUGAR^® training and certification course.

Here is what my colleague and co-developer of the instrument, Börje Dahl has to say about it.

“By using SUGAR^®, we ask our patients to give us permission to be invited into their lives’, to share their experiences, and to listen to stories about how a psychoactive substance has captured their beings. This is a process that creates an alliance between us, increases the interviewees willingness to change and decreases the level of shame that the loss of control has caused them. In short , SUGAR^® is a steppingstone to a new life” Börje Dahl CEO  Dahl and Dahl

Prerequisites for the certification course for SUGAR® – at least one of the following:

• If you have a problem with food someone in our team will do a SUGAR^® assessment on you.
• Prior participation in training with Bitten Jonsson.
• Prior participation in the INFACT course.
• Certification in ADDIS^® or ADDIS^® adolescent
• Nutrition specialist.
• Licensed dietician or nutritional advisor.
• Academic degree in health and/or social fields (e.g. physician, nurse, psychologist, social worker, psychotherapist etc.)
• Alcohol / drug counselor
• Special cases: If you have no prior formal education in the health, social or addiction fields, exceptions can be granted for those with several years of work experience in the food addiction/nutrition/alcohol /drug area.

Contact me for further information.